Muse
by HalfwayFlawless
Summary: Not a night passes when Dom doesn't wonder if she's still ensnared in there somewhere deep that he can't reach while conscious. He just wants closure, nothing more, nothing less. So he uses his lovely muse to find it. Oneshot.


A/N: So, I got this idea while watching that heart-shattering scene between Mal and Dom in Limbo. It's just a quick one-shot. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Although I am among the many who wish they owned Inception, I do not.

It's a bad idea. He knows it and he knows it to his very core. He's told himself to deny the opportunity so many times he no longer bothers to keep track and it's mutated into a silent mantra in the back of his head. _Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. _So much could go wrong - too much - and he'd be an absolute fool to give in now.

The idea of another job pegs him as he goes through the parental motions of each day. As he packs Phillipa's lunch, as he teaches James to tie his shoelaces, as he washes the dishes from dinner, and as he kisses their little heads good-night. The worst of it is when he's trying to fall asleep in the empty bed and there's nothing to listen to in the dark house but the ringing silence and his own, stubborn thoughts. Half the time, he discards the idea sleeping and just sits up to chases the thought around his head for hours, always ending up back at the starting point: nowhere.

He hasn't set eye on any of those damned silver briefcases in months, nor does he have access to them, and all he sees of Mal is in the picture frames around the house. For this, he is grateful, but that doesn't make the abyss inside him move an inch from where it's placed somewhere between his heart and stomach.

Eventually, he forms an excuse. He was bound to find some loophole. He'll take it as a test to see if she's really gone. She hadn't made appearances to his dreams at night, but then again, no one did. He no longer dreamt. But if anyone or anything could possibly bring back his organic dreams, it would be her.

He returns the email, accepting the job as an architect for an extraction. A simple, two-leveled dream is all they need. _It's hardly anything_, he tells himself, all while mentally beating himself up for pressing the 'send' button. He might as well have sent himself back to hell when he hit it, carelessly tossing everything back on the line. It seems he hadn't escaped the business as fast as he thought he had. It still had a tenacious grip on him, too firm for his liking.

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly through his nose, reaching for his totem. The silence that follows after he spins it doesn't soothe him.

But there was the force of the challenge that drove him. The extractor in him strived to step up to the challenge and prove that he was truly free of his past misadventures. It was one of the attributes that came with the career: constantly searching for the next near-impossible stunt. You can take the man out of extraction, but you can't take the extraction out of the man.

A fresh sheet of paper and a sharpened pencil was sharply nostalgia-inducing. He'll freely admit, he had flashes of jealousy toward the brilliant, young architecture student Miles had offered him, Ariadne. She was able to utilize the full, awe-inspiring potential of the dreamspace without being plagued by sabotage-prone shades stalking her subconscious. He'd never witnessed anyone take advantage of the opportunity and unleash their creativity in the manner she had.

It had been years since he'd designed something legitimate for a job. _Start with the maze._

He'll need the best maze he can create. If he gives it any less than two-hundred percent, he can't be sure whether or not his subconscious genuinely passes the test. A mediocre maze for a hardly militarized mind won't suffice this time. Not only will he have to blow his employer away, but himself as well.

So he uses the maze he has yet to find a parallel to.

Mal.

_She practically _invented_ the maze_, he thinks with a sad smile as he traces the pentagonal outline with a practiced hand, making each line even to each other without thinking. She's the perfect muse. She was labyrinth personified. A collection of every lovely, refined, coarse, and seamless trait in the book.

He sits in his bed for hours, until his back is sore and his eyes begin to water from staring at the serpentine and convoluted lines. He draws them like they're the only written language he knows. He sketches each one with more vigor than the last, determined to create a design worthy to test his tortured subconscious. His own skills are put to the test by sketching and re-sketching all lines that were a disgrace to be included in such a masterpiece-to-be.

He glances up only to look at the picture frame that resides on his bed-side table to keep the image of his muse fresh in the forefront of his mind. He could sketch forever and all the little lines that make up the sinuous layout would never match the amount of perplexity Mal contained.

He remembers all of her complexity, all her perfections, all her imperfections and translates them into the bewilderment on the page. He wracked his brain to recall every habit, aspect and peculiarity that made her who she was, who he loved, not that is was hard. All those little things added up to be the entanglement of elaborate, baroque, pathways in front of him.

He finds dry humor in what a paradox this all is. He's using what he's trying to get away from as the way out. It's completely backwards and doesn't make sense, yet, if viewed with the correct prospective, it works.

His old companion, guilt, returns as he wakes James and Phillipa the next morning. Some rational part of him seeks for a justification that will banish the guilt from clouding his thoughts. The only reason he finds is closure, nothing more, nothing less. Not a night has past when he doesn't wonder if she's still ensnared in there somewhere, somewhere deep that even he can't reach while conscious.

He shows up at his assigned location a week later to teach one of the two layers. He'll be the dreamer of the other.

Of course he's required to hook himself up to the machine again; it's only expected. Sedatives aren't the only things that are circulated in his bloodstream as he slips under.

He doesn't have control of the dream, and he easily consoles himself by saying the test hasn't begun yet. After all, the best lie is one that even the liar wholly believes.

She doesn't show during the teaching session. Not a glimmer let alone a rumbling freight train.

He doesn't sleep the night before the job. He stands between their beds and runs a hand over their blonde hair before and long after they've drifted off to their own dreams. He doesn't think about Mal. He just hopes this isn't good-bye. _At least you get a good-bye._ He wonders if it's better with or without one.

He finally permits himself to accept the fact that the test has started as he tranquilly slides the needle under his skin, making himself amply comfortable in the chaise. If he can keep his poker face, no one will be the wiser about the larger angle he's playing. He tries not to think too hard, since doing that would unlock a floodgate of nerves and uncollectedness.

He wakes in the first level and the gate unlocks itself, releasing the nerves. It's troubling to know the exact structure and fine points of the maze while under with other people after years of built up paranoia for this scenario. But that's the point of it all and he musters enough gut to push through and complete his miniscule job of monitoring the mark's actions.

No projections act out of the ordinary. None of them charge at him with a kitchen knife. Apart from the expected hustle of the city around him, all activity was relatively quiet.

He stands, acknowledging the other members of the team at required intervals and keeps one eye on the subject and the other on the crowd. He systematically scans each face as it passes, immersed in his focus. He idly wonders why his heart has adopted an anxious tug to accompany the thudding beat.

A flicker of short, bouncy, brown hair flits by at the edge of his vision, sending his heart ablaze and into his throat. _Could it be possible?_

As stealthily as possible, he leaves his post within eyesight of the mark and hastily races in pursuit towards the mystery projection, dodging through the crowd. From the back, he's almost certain it's her. His heart races faster than his feet as his mind registers that the skin tone and height are correct. There's even a confident stride to her step.

He doesn't think as he taps the woman on the shoulder and it takes him no time to determine that it isn't Mal as she turns in confusion. False alarm. Unembarrassed, he turns on his heel and heads back to his abandoned position.

His heart betrays him for half a second by aching with the desire to see her one last time, living and breathing, with color flourished on her cheeks and eyes all right. To see her in front of him in all her intricate glory. Just one last time, as if the last wasn't enough.

But she's a shade, and there would be no intricate glory. Just a slight touch of the labyrinth she used to be. And for the selfish instant that he wishes he could will her into existence, he can't.

The first level is complete and they're perfectly on schedule, not veering from the plan in the slightest. A single shot of pure relief surges through him as he sets up a PASIV to send them under a second time. He's half way there, but the worst isn't over.

The second level is his for the taking and as the stakes rise, so does his blood pressure. He has no other job down here apart from sustaining the dream. He settles onto a sofa, prepared to wait out the remainder of the nerve-wracking minutes.

There isn't so much as a broken neck of wine glass or an anguished whisper in a French accent for the full quarter of an hour. His senses are on high alert and he's constantly jerking his head every which direction, as not to let anything slip past him.

Their forger pretentiously exits the room next to him, subtly nodding to indicate a job complete and successful. His heart unclenches slightly and he bows his head as the image of the children fills his mind's eye.

It's less than a minute before the kick when he concludes that if she were to show, she would've by now; he's given it plenty of time.

His muse is gone.

He closes his eyes soberly as the free fall overtakes him.

A/N: Compliments? Criticizism? Reviews make my world go round, so please leave one! Pretty please.


End file.
